When I was younger, I didn’t give a lot of thought about what it meant to be happy. I just was. Happiness wasn’t hard to attain; all my needs were provided for, I had all the time in the world to spend doing the things I loved, and everywhere I went there were people who cared about me because I was me – not just because of what I could do for them. Everything was nice and warm and special. I hadn’t faced, yet, the many disappointments, failures, heartbreaks and tragedies that life bestows on us all. We tend to take for granted the things we’re given free of charge, things that we don’t have to spend a lot of time and energy focusing on and working towards. It’s only when the free ride is over that we realize how lucky we were to have been on it in the first place. As we get older, we begin to see the world for the difficult, unfair, even cruel place that it is. At some point, the sheer radiance of life begins to fade… The world becomes a colder place. As we see and experience more, slowly but surely, the things that made us happy begin to drop out of our lives – sometimes without us even noticing. No, life is not easy. It’s not fair. And nothing is guaranteed – not even happiness.
You see, when most of use are young, we view happiness as a neutral, default position. It’s the baseline emotional state, because for many of us, it’s all we’ve ever known. So then, as we get older, we look for things to make us even happier. Because just being “happy” is normal – we want more. We’re sort of like junkies in that way. And so, over time, our focus begins to shift from the things we have to the things we don’t have. To the things we desire to have – “If I only had X, Y or Z, then I’d be happy.” We forget how to be happy with and grateful for the things that we do have. With all the blessings we have in life (especially those of us who were lucky enough to have been born in the middle or upper class of a developed nation), they’re all taken for granted – even if it was something that, at one point, made us happy, something we formerly desired. Why? I think it’s because when we look at the things we have “in our stable”, we realize there’s a deeper happiness that eludes us still. And so the search continues – on to the next thing that will supposedly bring us the happiness we’re all are so desperate to find.
More often than not, those things we search for require money to obtain. So then our goal becomes acquiring money, to buy the things we don’t have, to replace the feelings we lost when we stopped appreciating the things we have. And so for many, money becomes a quantifiable measure of happiness – or at least, that’s what they think before they obtain it, only to realize that money, and all the things they can buy with it, are just an illusion. Unless you’re Scrooge McDuck, and your favorite pastime is swimming in a vault of gold, the sheer accumulation of wealth is not going to make you happy. I was fortunate enough not to fall into that trap. Money was never of primary importance to me. I suppose I have my parents to thank for that. But – simply realizing what happiness is NOT does not mean that you know what happiness IS… There are plenty of other things that people mistakenly identify as the would-be source of their happiness, and they all have one in common: they’re all something. Seriously. I’m not trying to be pedantic here, but they are some thing that exists external to ourselves. Some thing that we must identify, locate and obtain. That was the mistake I made. And for a year, I chased after this idea that turned out to be more elusive than smoke. Unsurprisingly, I never caught it.
Let me back up a bit…
When I graduated college and got my first salaried job, I felt like I was finally in a position to “live my life”. So I got to work building my life – doing the things I wanted to do and becoming the person I wanted to be. But I wasn’t there yet, I wasn’t the “complete” person I wanted to be. Then I met someone who was fun and funny, who indulged me in my love of deep conversations and debates about anything and everything, who truly appreciated me for who I was. And for a time, I felt fulfilled. I was happy. It wasn’t perfect, of course, no relationships are. And in spite of the troubles – or perhaps because of them – I poured all my time and energy into making that relationship work, for years, instead of continuing to examine myself and who I really was and what I wanted out of life. Things eventually fell apart anyway, and I was back out on my own, alone. It felt like a chunk of my life was missing. That was alright with me though. It was amazing, actually. I began to remember all the parts of myself I had to suppress and all the experiences I had to sacrifice in order to make the relationship work. So I set about chasing those things, in an almost manic way. Concerts, parties, travel – you name it. If I saw something I wanted, I bought it. If there was somewhere I wanted to go, I went. If there was someone I wanted to sleep with, I did. For the first time in my life, I truly had no limits. There was nothing to stop me from having anything I wanted. And again, I felt fulfilled and happy – for a time. But it was all hollow. Empty. There was no substance behind these superficial prizes. In hindsight, all I was doing was trying to fill the hole in me that was left when I became single. Every time I found something I thought was “big enough”, it gave me only fleeting moments of fulfillment and happiness before vanishing, as if it was sucked into a black hole. I didn’t worry though, they were all easily replaced… Until I met someone really special. Someone who made me feel things I never had before. I was on Cloud Nine. For a time. But always the fool, it wasn’t long before I scared her off. C’est la vie. But this time was different. This time, the happiness and fulfillment I longed for was not so easily replaced. And in the sadness that followed, I had one of the greatest moments of realization in my life: I was not happy because I was looking for the wrong things to make me happy. I was looking outward for a sense of fulfillment when I instead should have been looking inward. Every thing that gave me momentary happiness, I either got bored of or I lost it. Because things don’t last forever. Possessions you own, places you go, things you do, people you love – just like happiness, none of these things are guaranteed in life. The only thing guaranteed to stay with you, to be there from this day until your last, is you.
That was how I learned that the only thing big enough to fill that hole and truly complete me was ME. I can fulfill myself. And the best thing was, I didn’t have to go anywhere or buy anything to find it. When we feel incomplete, like something is missing, all we have to do is reach inside and pull out more of ourselves – the parts we neglect for one reason or another. It’s hopelessly cliche and deceptively simple, but it’s true: the secret to being truly happy is, you must love yourself. Fiercely. Unconditionally. You are the source of your own happiness. When you love yourself, it becomes easy to accept your whole past – all the good and all the bad that’s happened in your life has shaped you into the person you are now. When you love yourself, you’ll be able to forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made, and let go of the regrets you’ve been holding on to. When you love yourself, you can be grateful for what you have and forget about what you don’t. You are the product of all of this – everything that was, and everything that wasn’t, has led you to this present moment, exactly where you are now. So if you love that person in that moment, how can any of that be wrong?
But we have to do more that just love ourselves; we have to treat ourselves well, too. That part should be all-too easy for most of us, but if you’ve led a life of restraint then consider, why would you not treat someone well if you love them? So don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that you should not pursue, and be made happy by, material items or temporary experiences. Buy that thing. Take that trip. Date that person. And love every second of it. But do it because you love yourself, and want to give yourself the best life you possibly can. Not because it’s the (next) thing you need to make you happy. If you’re doing it to fill a hole in your life, you will find that every thing you can possibly try to fill it with ends up being woefully inadequate. Make yourself the most important thing in your own life – not your job, not your significant other, not your house or your car or any other thing. Now again, don’t mistake the message here. I’m not telling you to be a selfish asshole – just don’t allow other people, things or ideas to take precedence over your own health and happiness. Live a life that excites you, and stop putting it off until “someday”. If you’re not careful, someday might never come. Enjoy yourself and your life in the present, because the past has already passed and the future will forever be a day away. Don’t become a slave to your routine: wake up, go to work, eat, watch tv, go to sleep, and on the weekends replace work with a bar. Don’t submit to the expectations and pressures of your family, friends or society if that’s not the way you want to live. If there’s something you really want to do, then give that to yourself, instead of accepting the life you’re left with when you let your fear of the unknown and your attachment to your comfort zone drive your life for you. Pay attention to yourself, your needs, your wants, your hopes and your dreams. True happiness – the kind that will remain even after you’ve lost everything – is loving yourself.
BCH
The Next Renaissance 